Correlation Analysis on Agronomic Characters in F2 Population Derived from MR64 and Pongsu Seribu 2

Background: Rice is a staple food that feeds for almost half of the world’s population. Rice grain yield has become the major target in breeding program to develop a good quality of rice varieties. Yield is a complex character and its potential involve many other agronomic characters. The relationship between rice yield components has been study widely at phenotypic level. Correlation coefficient analysis has been used by breeders to understand the components of selection. F2 population was used in this research. Objective: The objective of the present study was to investigate the relationships between agronomic characters and grain yield for high yielding rice varieties. Results: Grain yield per plant was positively associated with plant height (r=0.296 p<0.01), number of tiller per plant (r=0.765 p<0.01), panicle number per plant (r=0.767 p<0.01), flag leaf width (r=0.370 p<0.01), flag leaf length (r=0.415 p <0.01), number of grains per panicle (r=0.750 p<0.01) , 1000-grain per weight (r=0.278 p<0.01), and grain length (r=0.248 p<0.01) indicating that simultaneous selection for these characters would result in improvement of yield. Conclusion: Both correlation and regression analysis, indicated that the number of panicles per plant, number of grains per panicle and 1000-grain weight could be considered as critical criteria for yield improvement in segregating generations of rice and selection of breeding lines.